The Importance of the Sabbath - From Across the Pond

By Darren Collins
Op/Ed
Catholic Online

The Ten Commandments are accepted as the basis of Western law and morals, within them are the key prohibitions in life, and they are some of the central tenets that guide a Christian's life. When asked if a person tries to keep, or believes they should keep, the Ten Commandments we would expect an unequivocal "Yes".

Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labour and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. (Exod. 9-10)

If the Ten Commandments are to be the foundation of Christian ethics then doesn't it come as given that it is a person's duty to maintain the holiness of the Sabbath by refraining from menial and servile work.

How does one keep the Sabbath day holy? Well, surely the Bible expands upon this. As it does, in the commandment it explicitly states,

On [the Sabbath] it you shall not do any work (Ibid.)

The question here is how one is to define work, if we look at the Old Testament and the Pharisaic tradition that sprang from it there is a veritable cornucopia of rules about what can, and cannot be done on the Sabbath. No cooking was allowed, one couldn't walk more than 2/3 of a mile, nor was it allowed to wind string. However, as Christians our primary focus should always be on the words of Jesus, he said,

Then he said to them, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath". (Mark 2:27)

Now we come to the crooks of the matter, From Jesus' words we can see that the rules on the Sabbath in Ancient Judaism were not what God had intended, the Sabbath was created as a day in which we would dedicate our every thought and action to God. Of course, in a perfect world this should be done on every day of the week but God realizes the foibles of man, and just like the sacraments, provides of with a day that we have to give to God.

This means that the treatment of the Sabbath in the modern world is also not what God intended. Sundays should involve: Church, family, and love; God within each of these things. We go to Church to receive the Blessed Sacrament, in hope that through it we will be able to come to God, and realize the sacrifice of the mass. Our family should aim to become like the family of Divine Beings that is God, we should show care for the person's on our family with self-sacrificing love, and desire for the person's to be pious and full of love. The third goes without saying.

We should desist from turning Sundays into a day of shopping, cleaning, and gluttony and realise that it is a gift from God, for us to rest and contemplate him. The message is: love God, love your neighbour, keep the Sabbath.

Contact

Darren Collins
https://www.catholic.org , GB
Darren Collins - Student,

Email

datrex1@hotmail.com

Keywords

sabbath

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